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I’m going to share with you 3 simple things that you can start implementing on your blog posts right away that will help to improve SEO.
Before you start thinking what is SEO and what does that have to do with my blog, I promise that I will be putting it all in a very simple explanation.
I’m going to be sharing things with you that I wish I had known about so much sooner in my blogging journey that will benefit you.
But, before I get into everything, I want to really quickly share a few of my other posts that I think you could find helpful!
If you don’t have a blog and you really want to start one, then check out THIS POST!
Or, if you already have a blog, then you will definitely want to check out my #1 Tip for Creating Traffic Driving Content for Your Blog!
Don’t forget to sign up on my Blogging Email List to receive all the blogging tips! This email signup is strictly for blogging info 😉
Now, on to this blog post!
What is SEO?
You may already be saying, “what is SEO?” Well, I did that same thing at first too. To simply put it, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
You know when you go to Google and type something in like maybe you are looking for a baby blanket crochet pattern or a specific recipe and it pops up a whole bunch of results? You usually wind up clicking on one of the results that are closest to the top and that are definitely on the 1st page. You usually won’t dig a few pages back, most often you will find something and click it on the 1st page.
Typically, the posts that are on spots #1 – #3 on Google get the majority of the clicks for that specific search term. So, the higher up on Google that you rank, the more clicks you will get to your blog. And, the more visitors your blog has, the more money that you can make.
This is why SEO is so important for your blog posts. I wish that I had learned more about this in the beginning of my blogging journey, I feel like my blog would have grew a lot faster if I had, but I’m glad that I learned about it at some point.
Don’t get me wrong, Google is not the only place that your traffic can come from. It can also come from other sources like social media, Pinterest and your email list.
But, I will say this, traffic that you get from search engines (like Google) is more of a passive type of traffic than the others (except for maybe Pinterest).
That simply means that you won’t have to keep promoting that post day after day, just to get people to find it. Once it is on the 1st page of Google, it will consistently receive traffic every day. And, consistent traffic means consistent money.
I will share one of the biggest things that has helped me to create SEO optimized blog posts and that is using Rank IQ to help me write my blog posts. You can read more about Rank IQ in THIS POST!
I’ll go ahead and share 3 simple things that you can incorporate into your blog posts now to help improve your SEO!
3 Ways to Improve Your SEO
When I say that these are 3 simple things, I mean they are SO simple and easy to incorporate into your blog posts!
#1. Use : in Post Title and not –
Ok, you may look at this 1st one and be thinking, “do what?” Let me explain.
I was guilty of doing this because I didn’t know that it could negatively impact my SEO. I’ll give you an example with one of my older posts. The title looked like this
Easy Granny Triangle Shawl – Free Crochet Pattern
What it should have looked like is this
Easy Granny Triangle Shawl: Free Crochet Pattern
See the difference? Now, you may be thinking does it really matter? It does and here is why.
When Google reads a blog post title, it quits reading every thing after the – symbol. Why is that? Well, if you will look next time you search for something, Google usually will put the – symbol after your blog post title and in front of your blog’s name, separating them.
So, in Google’s eyes everything after the – symbol is not there. So this is what Google would read on my old blog post title
Easy Granny Triangle Shawl
Because it has the – symbol, Google would disregard the phrase ‘Free Crochet Pattern’ because it came after the – symbol. Is it making sense now?
So, it doesn’t read 3 very important and key words of my title, ‘Free Crochet Pattern’ and that can do nothing but hurt my SEO.
Make sure that you are not making this same mistake as I was in the beginning and use a : instead of a – symbol!
#2. Use 1200 Pixel Images
You may be wondering why 1200 pixels? Well, the only thing that I can say is that Google likes to see images that are 1200 pixels wide.
So, if that is what Google wants, that is what I will give Google, haha!
I do know one thing though, I used to upload images that were 3000 – 4000 wide and the time that they took to load was sooooo long! If it takes your page forever to load, odds are that the person is just going to click the back arrow and go somewhere else to find their answer.
You may be wondering, how do I make all my images 1200 pixels wide. Well, I’ll tell you how I do it.
This may not be the best way and I’m sure that there are others that might know how to do this better, but this sure is a simple way! I use Canva to resize all my photos before I upload them into my blog.
To do this you will simply go to Canva, click on create a design and click on custom size. I make my images 1200 px X 1200 px squares. Once you have your blank canvas, you will upload your image, place it in the square, crop it and then download the image.
When you download your image, you have 2 options, you can save the file as either a JPG file or a PNG file. Either will work, but I save mine as a JPG file because they tend to load faster because they have a smaller file size.
#3. Name All Your Images and Add ALT Text.
On to the final SEO tip, naming all you images.
If you are uploading your image straight from you computer, then more than likely, the image will have some random name like n3dfzj8.jpg. You don’t want to upload an image into your post that isn’t named.
No matter what the image is, you will want to give it a name describing what the image is. This gives Google somethings to read about the image and Google likes this.
If you download you images from Canva, then chances are you already named you image.
Aside from just naming the image, you will also want to add ALT text after you upload it to your post. You can add this in either your media library or directly in the post.
Adding ALT text is different from naming your image, in case you are wondering. And, again, ALT text just needs to be a simple description of what the picture is.
Take this picture as an example
I added this description to the ALT text – granny stripe blanket with a furls crochet hook on table.
So, you can see that it doesn’t have to be anything super hard, just a short description of what’s in the image.
The reason for adding ALT text to your images is that let’s say that someone uses a screen reader to look at you site, when it comes to the image Google will read the ALT text to describe the image.
It also helps to improve your SEO in Google’s eyes.
So, there you have 3 super simple tips to help improve SEO. I’ve realized that with blogging, sometimes it’s the little things that can truly make a difference, like these 3 things that I’ve mentioned.
Don’t forget to check out my #1 Tip for Creating Traffic Driving Content
I hope that you have found this post helpful! If you want to receive more tips like this, be sure to sign up for my Blogging Emails!
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